Mistress Matisse's Journal

I found out today that Jezebel.com wants to link to my latest Stranger column: The Great Polyamory vs Polyfuckery Debate. I'm charmed and flattered, and quite curious to see how Jezebel readers respond to it...

Labels: column, links, polyamory

I forget sometimes that there's a whole little section of columns I've written for The Stranger that do not appear under my byline in their archives proper. They are over on the the personals site, Lustlab. Here's one from some years ago that I selected to place here today, but you can enjoy all of them here.

Anatomy of a BDSM Party

10:40 p.m.—Max and I arrive at our host’s home and stash our stuff with the 20-odd other bags of BDSM toys sitting near the front door. The assortment of luggage reflects the tastes of the owners: black plastic tackle boxes full of needles and sharp toys, architects’ document tubes containing long canes and crops, and black leather duffle bags loaded with floggers and paddles.

10:42 p.m.—I take a look around the room, waving to a few people. I’m guessing there are about 40 other BDSM people present, and if past experience is anything to go by, about half of them will be people I know well, a quarter of them people who I know slightly, and the rest of them people I don’t know at all.

10:44 p.m.—I put the beers we brought into the ice chest and we then fall into conversation with some friends standing by the host’s dining-room table, which is loaded with yummy food. I eat strawberries and remark to Rose that her breasts, which are attractively displayed in a transparent T-shirt, are so beautiful that it’s difficult to restrain myself from touching them. She smiles and invites me to go ahead. Max and I aren’t in full-on cruising mode tonight, but we’re open to doing some casual play if the right situation presents itself, so gently squeezing Rose’s tits is an auspicious beginning for the evening.

10:50 p.m.—Rose introduces me to a tall boy who has blue hair, blue eye shadow, and a blue-trimmed corset, all perfectly matched. The three of us chat about the pains and pleasures of wearing high-heeled shoes.

10:58 p.m.—Mingling in the living room, I sit down next to another female friend and ask her about the pretty brocade bustier she’s wearing. We then get into a discussion about the relative merits of dating people already in the BDSM community versus meeting someone presumably vanilla and then “turning” them. I profess myself to be firmly in the first camp, but she offers some spirited debate on the matter, based mainly on what she sees as the slim pickings available in terms of already-kinky single men.

11:07 p.m.—Brocade Bustier and I are joined by a third woman, wearing a long black gown, and the three of us get into a hilariously bitchy conversation about how one can identify undesirable dating possibilities.

11:10 p.m.—Three women laughing together attract male attention, and we are joined by a guy in a black leather vest. We warn him that he should not attempt to participate in this female-dominated conversation.

11:14 p.m.—The guy in the black leather vest leaves. Apparently our discussion of bad combovers, and the relationship between men’s cars and their penis size, displeased him in some way. We are not greatly troubled by his departure.

11:28 p.m.—I find Max and we walk downstairs to the basement, where the BDSM play is happening. There’s a light flogging going on in one corner, and across the room a local bondage artist is putting a rope body harness on a topless woman, who is giggling. The main attraction for the voyeurs among us, however, is tattoo/body modification artist Gypsy Jill*, who is suturing glittering crystal and rhinestone beads onto another woman’s back, breasts, and shoulders. There are matching beads already woven into her hair. It’s clearly going to be an elaborate piece of body art when it’s finished. The woman being sewn on quivers occasionally, but it’s impossible to tell if it’s from pain or pleasure. Otherwise she sits quietly, watching herself and Jill in a mirror that’s been placed in front of her chair. A handful of rapt observers stand at a polite distance, murmuring amongst themselves in low voices.

11:49 p.m.—Max and I are enjoying just seeing our friends, but we’re also still considering who, if anyone, we might pounce upon. So we go back upstairs and wander out onto the deck, where several nude people are sitting in a hot tub. A black-haired woman in a black leather corset, puffy tulle skirts, and high laced boots is sitting next to the tub in a plastic chair, holding a laughing conversation with a naked woman as she splashes in the water. Sounds float out to us from the living room, and everyone’s head turns for a moment as we all hear the familiar thwack sound of a flogger landing on someone’s flesh. A few people stub out their cigarettes and stroll inside to see who’s getting flogged, but most of us just smile and go back to our conversations.

12:11 a.m.—After an amusing group discussion about how to get one’s BDSM toys through an airline baggage check, I go back inside to get a drink, carefully avoiding the backswing of the corseted Mistress who’s flogging a shirtless man as he leans up against the wall. I bend over to get a can of pop out of the ice chest, and as I straighten up, a male friend standing a few feet behind me grins and asks if I’ll get him one too. I obligingly start to bend over again before I remember: I’m wearing my extremely short leopard skin skirt. I stick out my tongue at him, and then pull up the hem of my skirt for a second and flash him my ass cheeks.

12:26 a.m.—One of the guests has recently appeared in a spanking and corporal punishment DVD and has brought a copy to the host, who promptly pops it into the player. It’s actually a pretty good DVD, as such things go, but there is no tougher audience than a roomful of hardcore perverts like us, and our response is something that, if filmed, might be entitled Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Fetish Movies.

1:00 a.m.—Despite some kinky possibilities here, Max and I decide we’d prefer to go home and fuck each other like crazed weasels, so kiss a lot of people goodbye—some more enthusiastically than others—and leave.

*Who is much missed by people who knew and loved her. Requiescat in pace, Jill.

Labels: kinky life

As the readers of my Twitter already know, I'm out of town for a few days. I'm enjoying a few days in Chicago with an intimate companion. I'm back Saturday evening, and I plan to spend Sunday recovering what I'm sure will be be a delightful trip.

But if you wish to see me, drop me a note and we'll plan a rendezvous for next week. I have missed seeing far too many people I'm fond of lately. You know who you are... So let's play.

Labels: schedule, travel notes

Even more than I want to kiss Matthew Inman, I want to kiss this cartoonist for drawing this cartoon. Because I feel this way ALL the time, and I'm eternally grateful to Allie Brosh for reminding me that other people suck at being grown-ups, too.






















You have to go read the whole thing. This one panel does not do it justice. What, you have to go to the bank? Forget that. Internet!

The newest Stranger column, about the Edward Bagley case in Missouri. I have some strong opinions about people who take my culture and do bad things with it.

Labels: column, kink/sex in the news

Letters To The Mistress

Dear Mistress Matisse

Why is the BDSM community so reverse-sexist? I have seen your columns about people abusing slaves and it is always men who abuse women. Why do you not speak out about the women who abuse men and hold them in slavery and fear? We are human too and it is not right that we have to suffer, pay money, be denied our rights just because we are the slave. If you are really the fair Mistress then you should speak of this too.

Huh. I’m a little confused by this letter. I think what the writer is talking about is legal cases, like the utterly awful-sounding Edward Bagley case in Missouri, where BDSM is used as a false justification for non-consensual abuse.

(Google it if you want, it's so ugly-feeling that I don't even want to link to it. And be aware that the Bagley case has not gone to trial, so this is all theoretical. The defense has not, in fact, presented BDSM as a rebuttal to the prosecution's charges, and they may not. Everything you read about that case is only alleged, not proven. But I remarked on it on Twitter a few days ago, and I have a column coming out this week that concerns it and cases like it.)

Quite simply, I haven’t written about parallel cases like that involving female defendants and male victims because I’m not aware of any. It is true that women can – and do – physically abuse men non-consensually. But I have not seen any cases where a woman was accused of imprisoning a man against his will and subjecting him to ongoing, systematic abuse that caused him to literally and constantly fear for his life.

(Note: I am excluding cases of a mother/caregiver abusing a child. I know that happens. I refer to cases of two unrelated adults.)

But if you know of any recent (say, the last five years) US cases where a woman has held a man captive, and the relationship between them was described in ways that mimic BDSM relationships, feel free to draw my attention to them.

Separate completely from the serious abuse question: I am highly amused that the writer seems to be saying he’s a slave, but he doesn’t want to be “held in slavery”, suffer, or be denied his rights. I know a number of slaves, Masters, and Mistresses who would say that was the exact point of slavery. I certainly have talked to a lot of men who fantasize about that precise arrangement. I think if there was a woman who was accused and convicted of such behavior, she’d probably get a lot of love letters during her time as a prison inmate!

Labels: bdsm dynamics, letters